Jacky wasn’t dead, after all—her chest was rising and falling ever so slightly—but she wasn’t in very good shape. When Rad pushed up Jacky’s singlet to examine the spear wound, she nearly gagged. The jagged hole to the left of her belly button was bleeding freely and bloated with exposed grayish-purple intestines that appeared ready to slip free.

Rad took off her own singlet and used it to apply pressure to the gash to help stop the bleeding. When Jacky began spasming, however, Rad immediately removed it. Not knowing what else to do, she rested Jacky’s head on her lap and whispered to her reassuringly, telling her everything was going to be fine.

All the while her eyes probed the deadly pool of water ahead of her, watching for the slightest ripple on the surface. They were six meters from the water’s edge. Rad would have liked to have been much farther away, but there was nothing she could do about that. She wasn’t strong enough to carry Jacky, and she wasn’t going to drag her for fear of exacerbating any of her injuries.

What am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do?

She couldn’t leave Jacky to go get help because, unconscious, Jacky would be at the mercy of the mermaid. She needed Marty and Dr. Montero to return. Then one of them could go to the Oannes while the other two stayed behind to watch over Jacky.

But Marty and Dr. Montero weren’t going to return, were they? There was a mermaid in the water—a killer mermaid—and it had already gotten them. That was why they were an hour late.

They were dead.

This seemed impossible. Marty was too smart to be dead. He knew too much about mermaids to be killed by one. Dead? No. Impossible.

But he is, she thought blackly. He’s dead. Dr. Montero’s dead. And Jacky’s going to be dead soon too.

Rad felt like crying. She brushed her fingertips across Jacky’s cheek. They had so much in common, the two of them. Even though she had only known Jacky for a couple of days, she felt like a sister to her.

“Pip’s going to find us,” she said confidently. “When we don’t return to the boat, she’ll come looking for us. She’ll find the village. The chief will bring her here. Everything’s going to be okay. You just have to hold on, okay?”

Jacky’s eyelids fluttered, or at least Rad thought they did.

“Jacks?”

Nothing.

“Jacks?”

Nothing.

Still, Rad thought maybe Jacky could hear her, even if she couldn’t respond, in the same way people in comas can hear loved ones speaking to them.